I love writing. I revere the use of language as an instrument for seeking the truth about life. My books are downloadable and the paperback editions will be appearing soon. Click on the links at the right side of this page. Peruse this blog, it's loaded with music, photography and writing. Hey, sign up for my email list!

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

How To Make Money Writing About Writing..or..my buck is faster than yours

I get these emails: "How
To Format Your Manuscript".
"How To Write The Perfect Query Letter." "How To Make Six Figures Writing
Copy".

"How To" books are always a bonanza. They work mostly on illusion. Writer's buy WRITERS MARKET or WRITERS GUIDE TO SCREAMING
SUCCESS and believe they will sell so many books about writing that they'll make a
nice comfy living.

I
cannot disprove this assertion without hours of boring research, sending
out questionnaires to writers who have bitten this hook and come up empty. I wish I could return to the past, pursue
that college degree in psychology, acquire a profession to backstop my creative
work and structure my life according to common sense rather than unconscious
rage and a relentless conviction that my talent is special.

I've
been a fool. BUT. Being a fool is what life is about. If you're not a fool for, oh, sixty or
seventy percent of your life, you won't know anything about the human condition
and your literary insights will be pallid.

I
am not accusing these writing entrepreneurs of bad faith. On the contrary, I'm envying them their
astute timing. The instructional writing
field is always the most lucrative when a demographic stampede is in progress,
and there is right now just such a stampede in the community of writers, be
they good, bad or brilliant.

I've
been a lousy internetrepreneur. Sound
it out. I just made it up.

Pain
is any experience you would rather not be having. I would rather not be having this experience of poverty. It's time to go back to what I know: story
telling. I've got some beautiful
stories and I hope you will download a copy and become a fan of my work. I'm almost ready. Be patient.

About Me

A Midwesterner by birth, I migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that I related better to the Beatniks. I harkened back to an "old school" world of hard bop, Coltrane, jazz, poetry, painting and photography. A large part of my life went "off the rails" and I experienced the reality of the streets for too long. Putting myself back together was the defining experience of my life so far. It wasn't easy. It did, however, nurture the writer in me. I have written novels, memoirs, poems, humorous fake emails, and commercials

for ridiculous non existent products. I have a passion for astronomy, history, psychology, the pure abstract absurdity of human experience (what the hell is it?). My partner is an honest to god Animal Communicator, as nutty as that may sound to some people. She is the real deal. She also suffers from Fibro and it's a curse with which we must work every day. Come visit my blog and